Empire of Terephos
by Lord Frozenbear09
Summary: A lost bloodline and a broken empire. Eight become Seven. Join seven unlucky heroes as they venture to both save their homes from an unxpected threat while at the same time solve a conspiracy and plot as old as the imperial bloodline.
1. Prologue

Long ago, a continent with eight different shaped kingdoms with unequal land came into war with each other. The kingdoms of Arator, Teros, Barathrone, Loredania, Weldroc, Mordrell, Oranaptris, and Ralldabouth fought for complete dominance over the land, each kingdoms desiring to conquer the other seven and build a mighty empire from the untied continent. But the war was in the favor of the most geographically isolated kingdom: the kingdom of Arator, the land most far into the north. The kingdom had military strategies that put the other seven to shame, and their leadership was strong and their will unbreakable. But when Arator's one hundredth king, Lord Kallian Blackthorn was challenged by the king of Teros: Lord Thorin Telethos, his pride made him accept. After a long duel that lasted a near week, Kallian was defeated by Thorin and with the king of Arator defeated the other kings didn't take long to surrender. Years later ,during his fortieth year, Thorin became emperor of all Terephos. Uniting the other seven kingdoms under his banner starting an era of peace and prosperity.

But it would not always be peaceful...

During the rein of the three-hundredth emperor, Emperor Dunban Telethos, the kingdom was hit by a massive and terrible plauge. The sickness and ailments killed twenty-five percent of the population, including the emperor and his wife. When the priests and paladins of Arator finally ended the plague, many feared the imperial bloodline ended that horrible year. Until, as if it was a miracle from the gods, young Egil Telethos ,the only son of three children fathered by Dunban, survived the plague continuing the imperial line. But even still there wouldn't always be peace for this empire.

During the reign of a young Klaus Telethos, the five-hundredth emperor, tragedy would strike again. This time however there was no hope for the empire when the young emperor ,childless and wifeless, had fallen terribly ill and no healing could cure it. Most surprising was the Grandbishop of Arator couldn't help cure this sickness. After many fruitless hours the young emperor gave a a terrible and bloodied cough, and soon afterwards the little life left within him faded and the emperor was dead. The imperial line of Thorin Telethos ended that night with its last Emperor...a young boy merely at the age of fifteen with no other relative who could take the throne. As a result of his death Terephos split back into the eight kingdoms it once was, and after a great cry of sadness and despair echoed from everyone in the kingdom. Hope was lost, for without an anyone related to the deceased imperial line that was of eligible claim, the debate over leadership raged on. Finally it reached a point where the Empire split back into the eight kingdoms it once was. But there were rumors of a conspiracy gossiped everywhere as, even to this day, the threat of war still looms over the remaining seven kingdoms.

Now, almost three hundred years since the death of the emperor, seven individuals each from one of the eight kingdoms, must both stop a war and solve the conspiracy that has been rumored to have started since the reign of the First Emperor.


	2. Beginning

Deep within the thick foliage of a dense, dark forest, stood a massive tree taller than all the others, it's trunk reaching past the canopy. This mighty tree stood tall and proud, with its dark oak and leaves of a deep emerald green, yet wisp like creatures, danced and played around the leaves of the tree, wisps that were either sapphire blue or amethyst purple. The wisps swirled around humanoid figures, who had long hair either black, blonde or auburn and had ears longer and pointier than most men. These were elves, the noble people of the forest kingdom, Weldroc, and the oldest of the races of Terephos. One of these elves, looked down to see a caravan on the carved dirt path that led to their tree. These caravan was lightly guarded with only a few mercenaries on horseback, but one of them, a grizzled and battle-scarred human with stubble and short white hair, looked up at the elf looking down and gave a short, quick salute before he spurred his horse to keep moving down the road. The human wore a brown shirt but only the right sleeve was visible since he was wearing plate mail on the rest of his body save his head and right hand. On his belt was a longsword that had a golden guard and pommel in the shape of a wolf; on the left side of his belt was a small steel dagger.

The caravan pressed on as one of the elves made their way down from the tree and approached the caravan. Once reaching the grizzled human, the elf gave a deep bow. "Greetings honored one." The elf spoke in a feminine voice as she bowed. "Greetings," the scarred man said back as he gave a short bow of his head. The other mercenaries looked surprised as they heard the exchange of elven words between the two but brushed it aside and continued to approach the tree along with the caravan.

The scarred man looked to the side and saw a few Astaparki-the ancient race of goat people that lived across the land. Many of the Astapakri were blind but this didn't stop them from living their lives as peacefully as possible. One of the Astaparki was sitting down and sat against one of the tree's many roots. As the caravan got close, the scarred human was close to the Astaparki, causing it to look up. Despite its blindfold, it continued to chew a piece of wheat, while it stroked its long beard with its clawed hand. "Still doing mercenary work Snow?" It asked in a deep voice. "Aye, and it's none of your business old man. How I get my gold is none of your concern," Snow said with a venom filled snark as he spurred his horse along. His reaction only made the elder Astaparki laugh as the human slowly rode away. "You can't keep running Snow! The truth will come back eventually," he called out to the leaving human as he returned to how he was originally, earning a frustrated groan from the battle-hardened mercenary.

After passing under an arc in the tree, which was naturally formed, the caravan came to an eventual halt at the gates of the city, built into the tree, as the merchants began unloading the goods they were carrying goods, such as foods and materials, like furs and ores. Some dwarves even took out a few boxes of pipeweed while the others worked on unhooking the horses from the carts and led them to some stables. The scarred man dismounted from his horse and walked toward the main entrance to the village. There, leaning against a part of the entrance arc, was an orc clad mostly in studded leather, save for his left arm which had plate mail over it. Much like Snow, this orc has facial scars , but his armor also had nicks and dents on it. "Took you long enough, Snow," the orc said impatiently as he looked at the human, whose left arm rested on the hilt of his longsword. "You were supposed to report back to the guild hall seven hours ago, along with the caravan. What kept you? Got distracted by some whore you met in a rundown tavern on the road?" The orc asked as he grew a cocky smile, showing his teeth and one of his broken fangs. Snow snarled as he walked past the orc without answering the question. However, Snow then turned his head and looked back "For the record, we were attacked by bandits," he said as he continued on his way toward the guild hall.

Throughout the lower levels of the tree, the bustling of the market for traders and merchants was headache inducing as snow made his way through them. "Hey Snow!" A loud voice cries out from the right make the human turn as he saw the dwarves he accompanied setting up shop while their leader waved at the human. Snow shook his head before he pushed through the waves of people that were going about the place purchasing wares from outside the city. The elder leader of the dwarf caravan stood on top of a stool as he smiled happily. "So glad you got us here Snow!" He exclaimed as he rocked the stool back and forth from his excitement. "Alright, alright Dorg! Don't need to get yourself hurt over it," Snow said as he calmed the dwarf down. Once calmed down, Dorg sat down in the chair and still had his smile plastered on his bearded face.

Snow shook his head wondering why the dwarf was so excited, until he saw the materials used for crafting a small weapon on the table. "What's this?," he asked the dwarf as he picked up the steel ingot on the counter. "It's the materials for crafting a dagger," the dwarf said happily. "Figured I'd pay you back by giving you those materials and you can bring them to an elven blacksmith in the middle levels. He's an old friend of mine, so he shouldn't charge you," Dorg said as he pushed the materials toward Snow, who picked them up and wrapped them in a cloth bundle. "Well, thank you Dorg. Hope you have a good time selling off your wares. Farewell," the human said as he gave a small nod to the dwarf who stood up and bowed. After saying his goodbyes, Snow put the materials in his bag and walked toward a stairway leading to the next level of the city.


	3. Reports and Orders

The lower levels of the city was a nightmare for Snow. Pushing and shoving past so many people, just to reach the guild hall was not easy. While he was wondering why everyone was so excited, he soon heard his answer when he the sounds of hooves hitting the wooden floor and armor, clanking lightly began to emerge past the crowd. While he wasn't able to see over the crowd, he was able to see a white banner edged with blue and embroidered with a golden stag. It didn't take long to figure out that it was a military escort or something similar to that effect.

After waiting for ten minutes, the crowd started to disperse allowing Snow to finally get through. Continuing his way toward the guild hall, he stopped for a moment when he saw a crowd in front the guild hall. "What the hell," he asked himself as he slowly began to approach the crowd which was shoving its way inside. Snow shook his head before a few people from other guilds started to move the crowd into two lines. After about fifteen minutes, the crowd was under control and moved steadily when one of the men controlling them noticed the grizzled mercenary. "Hey Snow!," he cried out as he waved his right arm which led to the mercenary cutting ahead of the whole crowd. "How long were you there?," he asked the human as he let another recruit through, "For about fifteen minutes," Snow said as his response before he was allowed inside the Guild Hall.

Seeing the massive amount of people signing up to join the various guilds available was...disturbing to say the least. Not implying that mercenary work wasn't good work or was difficult, the problem was how popular in can be for..practically anyone. Farmers, peasants, all kinds of poor people who couldn't find other work or weren't able to join the military end up picking mercenary life, although in their defense, the pay is decent enough for a living. Snow knew this better than anyone, he had been in the mercenary business long enough to know that typical pay from the job itself was good and the payment you got from the guild itself. But if you wanted more money you had to get higher in the ranks and you had to do harder jobs.

Getting out of his mental self-rant, Snow walked up to the counter and placed a folded envelope on the counter. "Jobs done, need a new one," he said to the woman behind the counter who took the envelope and put it in a small bin behind her. But instead of giving Snow another envelope she instead looked up at him, "Master Tywin wants to see you," she said before looking back down. Snow only scoffed and looked at a door far to his right before he headed for it.

Sitting upon a wooden chair with his legs propped on top of the table, was an old man, with a thick white beard and long white hair that reached to his shoulders, the only part of his hair and beard that wasn't white was the roots of his hair and his mustache both of which were gray. His many wrinkles, sunken blue eyes and the battle scars on his face and hands told he was no doubt a man of wisdom and experience. A throwing axe hung from his belt along with the various pouches he had as well including the sheathed, machete like sword he had on the left side of his belt. His wet sand, cloth shirt, which was under a mail breastplate, and plate mail leggings were semi-weathered. His armor consisting of the plate breastplate with a shoulder pad on the right, a gauntlet on his right hand and steel boots all had various nicks and dents mostly likely from years of battle. His left arm only hand a weathered wrist guard with a wolf engraved on it, but a slash mark went across it making it almost discernible.

As he leaned back, the old man took his pipe out of his mouth and let out small rings of smoke that floated around the room before breaking and disappearing. As the old man watch one ring float toward the door, it was opened immediately which broke the ring. Sighing in an annoyed manner, the old man sat up and folded his hands on the table, "Come in, don't just stop halfway through entering," he said before taking a light puff of his pipe. The old man watched as, Snow stepped into the room and closed the door behind him, "Apologies Guild Master Tywin, but I was told that you wanted to see me?," he asked as he as sat down in the chair in front of Tywin's desk.

"Yes, yes I did! We just got another mission request. An extermination mission," Tywin said as he pulled out a gilded letter sealed with a wax stamp that bore an elk's head. "I read the letter, the mission is a request to kill a Dire Manticore," Tywin said but kept the letter in his hand," but the letter also specifically calls for you, Snow, to be the one that kills this beast. At first I wondered why but then I saw the name of the sender," he said as he handed the letter to Snow who took it with slight hesitation. As Snow began to read the letter he saw the senders name at the bottom, it was signed by a 'Lord Illidan Sunstrider'

"I almost didn't want to write back. This is something your not fit to fight Snow." "Are you saying that I'm a shit monster hunter?," Snow demanded in an angry tone as he slammed his now bawled fists onto the table but this made Tywin stand up and stare, eye to eye, at his subordinate. Silent rage burned in the eyes of both men before Tywin closed his eyes and took a deep breath before exhaling and reopening his eyes.

"I'm not saying your skills as a monster hunter are shit, I'm saying that your mission is to kill a Dire Manticore and it's impossible. Normal Manticores alone are vicious, I'm not sending one of my best men to go and fight a Dire version," Tywin countered before holding the bridge of his nose in frustration, now closing his eyes again before reopening them and turning away. "Fine...I'll send you to kill this thing but bare in mind, this manticore is going to be unlike anything you've fought."

Snow was silent for a minute but cleared his throat and looked at Tywin, "Very well, I'll head out tomorrow morning." He said before holding his hand over his mouth while a light yawn was heard behind it. Tywin waved his hand in a dismissive way, allowing the mercenary to leave the room.

After stepping out, Snow made his way to the guild hall's mess room. There he found only a few servants cleaning and mostly empty tables, so he took a seat at the closest one. After a few minutes, a servant boy brought over some bread and meat along with a tankard of ale. Through the whole time Snow sat there, eating and drinking, he took a quick glance at an individual on the other side of the room.

The figure was wearing a brown cloak and was smoking from a pipe, the only other visible parts was their right hand which was wearing a fingerless leather glove and two green eyes that were occasionally revealed by the growing light from the pipe.

Snow disregarded them after a few more moments and left a few gold coins before getting up and leaving for his room in the housing section of the guild hall.


	4. The Hunt Begins

The next morning, Snow woke up and slowly made his way out of his bed. After a few minutes of stretching, Snow opened the curtains to see most of the torches were put out, moonlight was shining though gaps in the tree branches onto a part of the massive sundial, in the middle of the main square, that was meant for midnight. Snow scoffed, before closing the curtain and walked towards the small table that had his steel dagger, belt, and his pouches. After a few minutes, Snow walked out his room ,wearing his armor, but now he had a dark, weathered, green cloak on as well. Heading for the guild hall doors, Snow could hear the sounds of the other guild members still sleeping, or in the case of the few that wake up early, moving around in their rooms getting dressed for missions of their own.

After getting breakfast, Snow left the guild hall and headed for the stables, where his horse should be at. Passing through the outer district, Snow took the time to look at the other shops that were set up by the other merchants. Snow stopped at Dorg's and found the dwarf asleep, leaning against the stool he usually sat on. Snow smirked before he headed towards his horse, which was currently eating hay, and unconnected it from the post it was tied to before mounting his horse. Snow tugged at the horse reins, spurring it along as he began making his way out of the city, the wisps of the forest glowing faintly through the darkness of the forest.

As Snow reached the clearing on the main road, he watched as a small, white, wisp swirled around in circles five feet above the ground. Snow watched as the small orb continued to dance around in the air before it stopped and flew into the trees quickly. This made Snow wonder why the wisp fled, usually the wisps enjoyed the company of others. Unless...rumors are to be believed that they were ghosts of dead elves and thus would be skittish near those they didn't know in life, but that's all they were, just rumors. With his eyes still locked onto where the wisp flew up to, Snow moved his horse along.

Reaching the entrance of the forest, Snow passed through the front gates where he saw a group of individuals. The group consisted of four dwarfs, three orcs, about five humans, a gnome, two goblins, both of whom were arguing over barrels of gunpowder, and an elf mounted on a stag. Two of the dwarfs were wearing leather armor and had muskets strapped to theirs backs along with a small war hammer on their belts each. The third dwarf was wearing full plate armor and had a war hammer in his right hand as he was speaking to one of the Orcs, who was clad in splint armor save for his head which had no helmet and had a trident in his hands. The gnome was wearing hooded robes as he examined his staff to see if it worked while the other two Orcs, both completely clad in spike armor, arm wrestled with the green one winning much to the brown ones fury. Turning his attention to the other humans, he noticed that they were wearing cloth wrapped leather armor and had scimitars on their belts, while speaking in a guttural language that involved clicking.

Snow immediately realized that they were Dalthraki, the humans that lived in the sand dunes of Mordrell. Their tanned skin was covered with grey leather armor that was mostly covered with sand covered cloth. The goblins wore hide made armor and had shortswords, still in the scabbards, strapped to their backs. But upon closer inspection, Snow noticed the hide parts of their armor was made from human skin, and while this made him cringe in disgust, he hoped it was bandits and raiders not innocent people. The elf, who's long blonde hair was tied into a braid and was mostly behind his ears, was wearing white mail armor with mint green trims along with a light gold cloak and had a katana strapped to his side. The elf was bickering with the fourth dwarf, who was wearing black as coal armor with golden edges and carried a poleaxe in his right hand. Snow recognized the sigil of the Dwarven Inperial Honor Guard and realized that this dwarf was mostly likely a captain, due to the medals and the horned, open-faced helmet he wore. The ram he was riding, which was currently stuffing it mouth with dew-covered grass, had decorated golden armor and the sigil of the Honor Guard on its helmet. As Snow got closer, he was able to put more attention to the arguement the dwarf and elf were having.

"We can't just go in blind! This beast is dangerous!" "I know! That's why helps been hired!", the elf roared out in response to the dwarf as he tightened his hands before calming down and looking to see Snow approaching the group. "So your the mercenary named Snow?" The elf asked as he and the dwarf turned around to face the approaching human. "Yes, I am, who are you?" he asked as he took a good look at both riders before giving a skeptical yet subtle look at the others, who were just milling about. "My name is Kael'Thas. This here is Muradin Bronzehammer and these men are Monster Hunters, contracted to help kill the Dire Manticores."

Snow took yet another skeptical look at the Monster Hunters, he could tell that something was off and he knew exactly why. Moving around Kael'Thas and Muradin, he was now able to see all the Monster Hunters in a better view. "First question; have any of you ever seen a Dire Manticore?" he asked them as he crossed his arms over the saddle of his horse.

The hunters looked at each other and then back at Snow. Their faces had lithe familiar look that told the veteran mercenary, "no". "Very well...have any of you ever fought a normal manticore?," he asked, putting emphasis on normal. Yet again, he got the same looks from his last question, and that's all he needed to know their inexperience. That was until the orcs raised theirs hands, "My brothers and I have killed one. Trapped it in a net and hacked away at it", said the orc in splint armor. "Well good. Least you and your brothers are more competent than the other Hunters here.", Snow said as he held his forehead and let out an exasperated sigh. "As for the rest of you; listen up!," Snow practically yelled at them making them flinch from how sudden it was, "Normal manitcores are dangerous alone, what we are fighting is a dire manticore. This beasts is viscous. You all may die, so if you want to leave now,go for it."

The Hunters said nothing, they remained quiet, until they all stood up and grabbed their weapons, fierce looks of determination etched upon their faces and their eyes, especially Kael'Thas and Muradin. Snow smirked as he spurred his horse to turn around and motioned for the group to follow him.

After several hours of walking, the group reached a field of tall grass, Snow made the group stop, his snuffed the air, catching a whiff of sulphur hanging in the air. Dismounting from his horse, Snow examines the ground and saw black dust of the grass, it stank of sulphur and after examining it's course, powdery nature, Snow realized it was gunpowder. "Someones been here before us."


End file.
